Amelia Earheart Ft. Vanished Podcast

In this episode Chris from Vanished podcast breaks down the enduring historical mystery of what exactly happened to Fred Noonan & Amelia Earhart. They would disappear on July 2nd 1937, with Amelia's last words over radio transition being panicked ....the last phrase uttered being 'wait'. We have done just that in the over 80 years that have passed by. Chris takes us through who these people were, the facts of the case, as well as theories new and old & then ranks them in order of what he believes to be the most plausible explanation as to what happened to Fred & Amelia.

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Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Riddle Me That is a true crimepodcast that deals with adult themes. Some
episodes explore disturbing topics such as murder, abuse, sexual violence, drug abuse,
suicide, and self harm. Pleaselisten at your own risk. Theories
disgusting episodes may not be the opinionof the host. Welcome back to the

(00:25):
show. I'm Jules and this hasRiddle Me That true crime. So today
we're going to switch it up andwe're doing something completely different. This is
going to be a historical mystery andfor that I'm welcoming Chris from Vanished Podcast.
Welcome to the show, Chris,Well, thank you for having me.
It's a pleasure to be here.So Chris, do you want to
talk a little bit about your podcast? Yeah? Sure. Vanished is the

(00:49):
current show that we do. It'sbeen in production now for We just wrapped
our second season on the show.Finally, it was a very long and
lengthy and windy season two. ButVanished as a podcast that I co host
alongside Jennifer Taylor, who I've broughtinto the show early in season one of
the show What's Now season one Andbasically this show is an investigation from the

(01:15):
very beginning of us learning or introducinga specific historical mystery case, and we
take that case all the way throughboth respective investigations, both sides, and
we actually take it all the wayinto a courtroom and do something called a
trial by jury. And the differencebetween our show and a lot of other

(01:36):
ones is it really relies heavily onreally our listeners to sort of participate in
the show. So really halfway orthree quarters into the each series or each
season, we do we ask ourlisteners to sort of become our jury and
sit in the jury box, soto speak. And if you're listening to,
for instance, the Amelia earhartcase andwe're presenting five theories on the Amelia

(01:57):
earhartcase of what happened to her andnoon, and then we ask our listeners
to sort of, you know,act as if they're in the jury,
and you know, what convinces you, what evidence would convince you if you're
sitting in a jury and you're listeningand hearing all this expert testimony, What's
what's gonna sell you, what's gonnamake you say, Hey, this is
what actually happened. This is whatI believe after hearing all the evidence.
And so you know, the taglinefor us is follow the evidence wherever it

(02:21):
leads, and that's what we do. We take it all the way down,
We drill all the way down asfar as we can, and we
do really deep dives on not onlyemiliair Heart, but multiple historical mysteries that
we've done so far. And that'sbasically the show. That's the premise of
the show. So before we startedrecording, you mentioned that you had a
background doing things like documentary filmmaking.Do you want to talk a little bit
about that. Yeah, well,we did one documentary so far. That's

(02:46):
that is complete, but it's beensort of in development hell for a very
long time. And the original documentarywas called Chasing Your Heart. That was
the original project that I started manymany years ago now, and Chasing Your
Heart was basically a simultaneous project betweena fourteen part documentary series, so about
fourteen hours of documentary filmmaking and apodcast that would basically coincide with that particular

(03:10):
documentary. So the idea originally wayback when, was if we did the
documentary, you could only put somuch content into the actual video and into
the documentary itself. So we thoughtwhat we'd do is we would prop up
the documentary by having more more contentfrom the guests that you hear in the
documentary and then outside the documentary too, and they would basically appear on the

(03:31):
podcast in a weekly podcast series onChasing Your Hearts. And we did both
of those, and the documentary isdone, as I said, but the
podcast ran for about one hundred orso episodes with all the bonus content,
and we filmed that over the courseof probably two or three years, going

(03:52):
all around the country shooting I thinkalmost fifty experts from all across their heart
realm, you know, from thelegacy side and the pere inside and all
the different theories and everything in between. And you know, the actual podcast
itself was sort of a meant tobe like a like a placeholder for content,
and that's what we did. Andso that the documentary has done,
and we're just sort of trying toget it into in the distribution right now

(04:14):
and it's been sort of stuck therefor a while, but we're still working
on it. So are you kindof to Amelia Earhart as Mike Morford is
to the Zodiac case h. Iwouldn't say that, because he's I mean,
he's Mike is very you know,from what I've I've talked to him
once, I believe, and I'veseen his work, and he's very well
versed. I would say that I'mI'm sort of the narrator or the the

(04:40):
the listener or viewer conscience as you'regoing along with the with the show.
So Mike is more of an experton his subject than I am on mine.
I think I think I'm more ofjust a just an admirer of Earhart,
an admirer of the case and everybodythat's participated in the case, and
and you know, I've just sortof narrated along the way, and that's
that's kind of my role on thiswhole thing. And for those of you

(05:01):
listening, if you're wondering what casewe're going to be talking about today,
get excited because we're going to betalking about Amelia Earhart. Yes, Amelia
Earhart. Yes, I've been talkingabout Amelia Earhart for probably twenty years now,
long time. Well, then you'rethe perfect person to tell the listeners
all about it. Yeah, SoAmelia Earhart is for those who were listening

(05:25):
who obviously likely know the name.At least she was a pilot in the
early days or the Golden Age ofaviation as I call it. She was
definitely not the first pilot, shewas not the best pilot, even by
her own admission, but she wasbasically kind of hit the stage on this
iconic level that no one's ever donesince. And she, you know,

(05:47):
essentially, just a few years aftershe started flying with not a whole lot
of flight under her belt, shestarted breaking records and setting records, and
a lot of that sort of startedwith happenstance because she, you know,
she was I think it's a nineteentwenty seven there was a well known woman.
She was a socialite. She's anaviator. Her name is Amy Guest,
and Amy wanted to be the firstwoman to fly or even be flown

(06:11):
basically carried across you know, theAtlantic Ocean as a passenger. And after
she decided that the trip was toodangerous for herself, she decided to sponsor
the project. And Guest was abillionaire, and that's a billionaire with a
B in the twenties, so she, I mean, you can just yeah,
Guest was this amazing woman in herown right, and she was an
adventurer and she wanted to do this, but I guess she just felt like

(06:34):
it was, you know, itwas too dangerous. I think it was
under the advice of her family.And so, you know, into Amelia
Earhart. Amelia Earharts this social workerin Boston at the time, and she
comes in one day and in theafternoon, I think of April of twenty
eight and she gets this phone calland this phone call changes her life forever.

(06:56):
And the guy, basically his nameis Hilton Raleigh, asks her if
she'd like to fly the Atlantic andit turns out that, you know,
that flight wasn't what Earhart initially sortof hoped it would be, you know,
because it really she just kind offlew across as a passenger. There
were two other male pilots, SlimGordon Wilm restults who know who flew the
plane. How common it would beor uncommon for women to be involved in

(07:19):
things like aviation in the twenties,It was very uncommon. It was it
was very uncommon. It was ait was a male dominated industry, as
most of those industries started out backthen, and there were certainly female pilots
at the time. But Earhart wassort of this she had this face,
she had this this look, andit was sort of exactly what they were

(07:40):
looking for for someone to take upthis mantle. And two it turns out
to be flown across the Atlantic asa passenger and not actually participate in the
flying itself. So she goes acrossthe Atlantic and she ends up when they
when they land and they they completethe flight. Ameliaire heart up being this

(08:01):
instant star. It's all over theworld because she's the first female and it
was a really big deal at thetime, and she sort of always had
this, you know, this issuewith that. I think she really felt
like she famously said that she wasa sack of potatoes on the flight,
like she really felt like she wasn'tshe didn't really do a whole lot to

(08:22):
warrant sort of the attention that shewas getting. And she decides to do
it again alone this time, andthat's about five years four or five years
later, and I think it's Mayof actually in nineteen thirty two. She's
only thirty four years old at thetime, and she decides to set off

(08:43):
from Harvard Grace, Newfoundland, andshe is just under fifteen hours. She
deals with, as you can imagine, very strong winds. There's icy conditions,
there's all kinds of mechanical problems,there's no GPS. She's basically flying
by the seat of her pan andshe misses her, you know, her
original landing destination, and she actuallyhits a pasture, this random pasture in

(09:09):
North Dairy, Ireland, and thereare two men there and she lands and
she scares the hell out of thosetwo guys, as you can probably imagine,
because this is big, big assplane that she flies across the Atlantic
and she she sets down and there'sa farm hand there that asks her who
she is and if she's flown veryfar, and she says from America.

(09:30):
So she flew into history that dayin May of nineteen thirty two. And
that's just the first of you know, over a dozen records that she breaks
within twenty four months of flying.So she's she's really becomes. She gets
basically catapults to this iconography that youknow, just gets bigger and bigger and
bigger as her career goes further andfurther and further. And that's that's sort

(09:54):
of who she becomes. She becomesthis icon in the face of women in
aviation, and a lot of peoplewould argue that She's still the face of
women in aviation going on eighty fiveyears later after she disappeared. I can't
think of any other woman whose faceis more recognizable within the field of aviation
than Amelia Earhart. But like,one thing that really struck me is that
she isn't somebody that wanted to havecredit for something she hadn't felt as though

(10:18):
she contributed to like that whole sackof potatoes on that first flight. She
was like, Hey, screw this, I'm going to actually go and do
it and get credit where credit isdeserved, like the amount of drive,
the amount of fortitude, and youknow, up against such adversity, like
the equipment isn't what it is today, and to just to be able to

(10:39):
do that with all of these peoplewho I'm sure in the background kind of
naysayers, and yet she does it. It's so impressive. Yeah, Amelia
was really one of those She's oneof those timeless women, and she's she
really still is. You know,there's a reason why there's a there's an
Amelia Earhart Day at NASA, andthere's you know, there's an Amelia Earhart

(11:01):
Festival, and there's all these womenin aviation that fly around the world solo
now really in her name to honorher still. And this is a woman
that really just sort of looked fearin the eye and just kind of conquered
it. And she flew in everycondition you can imagine. She walked away

(11:22):
from eleven crashes in her career,and she did really what a lot of
people believed to be the impossible,and she continued to do the impossible.
It feels like every time she setout to achieve something, to set a
record, to do whatever she wasdoing, she killed it. She took
it and just kind of ran withit and not only did it, but

(11:43):
conquered it and became really really justthe face of aviation. She almost rose
to just a general face of aviation. You had Charles Lindbergh, who was
obviously very very famous at the time, but you know, Amelia Earhart,
because she was a woman, itsort of had that added extra, uh
you know, that that extra spiceto it. If for lack of a

(12:05):
better term, she really wanted todo something that that men were dominating at
the time, and she wanted tostand out in it, and she just,
you know, she just went anddid it. I mean, it
was one of those things that people, you know, people still kind of
talk about to this day, andthe mind reels on some of the stuff
that she was able to accomplish,and some of the records that she was
able to break, and some ofthe some of the cutting edge stuff that

(12:26):
she was able to do, likeflying the autogyro, which was like an
experimental aircraft at the time, andyou know, she just again just looked
fear in the eye and just wentup in this thing and did some really
compelling, amazing things in it anda really experimental aircraft. And you know,
someone like that of that, youknow, with that stature and with

(12:46):
that kind of level of fame atthe time, you know, she just
had no fear. She had nofear. She just kept going, she
kept grinding, and it was hercareer just got more and more spectacular,
and it's it really sent sort ofshockwaves through you know, through ava and
aerospace and what became aerospace, andit still does to this day. She
really was to aviation what like MurrayCurry was to chemistry and physics, right,

(13:09):
absolutely, absolutely, one hundred percent. Yeah, when it comes to
women in aviation specifically, but justaviation in general. If you say,
you name me a famous pilot,They're probably going to say Charles Lindberg and
Amelia Earhart most likely most people wouldsay that. And so, yeah,
I mean for her to be rightthere, not really male or female,

(13:33):
so to speak, but for herto be just pilot is pretty amazing.
It's pretty remarkable, and especially inthat time, it's pretty remarkable. And
it's interesting that they're both the mostfamous pilots and both of their cases there's
a mystery attached, right with theLindbergh baby and then with Amelia Earhart vanishing,
right, Yeah, Amelia Earhart.You know, she disappears at thirty

(13:54):
nine years old. You got tokeep keep in mind thirty nine was a
very high life expectancy for pilots atthe time time, so you know,
you can only imagine how many pilotsdied, you know, flying, you
know, you learned and you paidin blood. And we talk about this
in the book and all that stuff, and in the show. She you
know, she she was really ata time where all this aircraft and all

(14:16):
this technology was was very experimental,and you know, she thrived in that
time and she disappeared at the heightof her popularity. I mean it,
I try to relate it to peoplenow, It's like, just imagine that
the most famous person on the planet, whoever you think that person is.
Imagine them sort of vanishing into thinair with no record of them being in

(14:41):
that moment or being there, andfor almost one hundred years, eighty five
years this year, nobody has anythingon it. It's pretty pretty amazing,
and so Amelia Earhart is it's areally interesting case. Definitely, it'd be
like Elon Musk just dropping off theface of the air. Absolutely, that's
exact what it would be like.It'd be like Musk, er, you

(15:01):
know, whoever, whatever name youthink would be the most famous person.
Just think about it that way.It's it's like a you know, it's
like Richard Branson or someone going onthis really crazy experimental flight or something and
then just vanishing in the thin airand we never know what happens to him.
And that's that's what we're dealing withhere. It's an impossibly difficult case,
and it's one of those cases thatjust when it comes to historical mystery,

(15:24):
it's you know, it's one ofthe biggest cases out there, definitely
top five of all time, maybeeven top three of all time. All
right, well, let's get intothe details. At the height of her
fame, she wants to do somethingthat is bigger than she's ever done.
She had at that time, shehad flown across the Atlantic, she'd flown
across the Pacific, she'd she'd soload across both oceans. She had,

(15:48):
you know, set all these flightrecords. She'd become the face, as
we've just talked about of aviation.So she was really, really big,
and she wanted to sort of capoff her career with the biggest possible bang
that she could think of. Andso people had flown around the world before,
but she wanted to do it.She wanted to slam dunk that record
in that flight, and she wantedno doubt to be left by any of

(16:11):
the naysayers and people who believe thatmaybe she wasn't the best pilot or whatever
the case was. So she wantedto do it bigger and better than anyone
else. So she wants to flyaround the world equatorially, So she wants
to circumnavigate the globe at the longestpossible route. She wants to hit the
most possible destinations, and she wantsto make this sort of a her Kudi

(16:32):
gras her curtain call, and sheand her navigator Fred Noonan, who actually
joined her and she met and joinedher in Hawaii. After the first leg
of the flight. They actually successfullycomplete most of the flight. They go
through this whole process, and theystop in all these different countries, and
they do all this this publicity andthey go through this whole process and it

(16:55):
runs really without off, without ahitch, you know, minor issues here
and there, but stuff you wouldreally sort of you know, minor mechanical
things and you know, maintenance onthe plane and things of that nature.
And three quarters of the way intothe world flight, really it's the second
to the last leg. She isthey take off from a Papua New Guinea,
Lay New Guinea, I should say, I'm sorry, and they're trying

(17:17):
to hit a tiny speck of anisland. It's an island called Howland Island.
You can google Earth this image rightnow. It's I always say this
like this, but it's it's basicallya needle in the largest, you know,
floating haystack in the world. Andit's she's trying to hit this one
impossible spot from from late New Guinea, and the whole idea is they're supposed

(17:38):
to refuel there. There is aCoastguard cutter, a ship, it's called
the Atasca, and it's sitting inwait, lying in wait off of Howland
Island, and it's there to guideher in and it's there to basically guide
her in safely and to refuel herso that her and Noonan can take off
from Howland, hit Hawaii and thenfrom a whole complete it and fly back

(18:02):
to Oakland and that would finish theflight. So they were almost there,
which really adds to the tragedy ofsort of what happens next. On the
morning of July the second, nineteenthirty seven, is en route to how
An Island. She had been flyingfor eighteen or nineteen hours or something of
that like that at this point,so they were probably very exhausted flying in

(18:25):
a very difficult plane, and shenever makes two way radio communication. That's
all they had at the time.They didn't have anybody on board that could
do Morse code. It's important tonote that they did have a larger team
in Hawaii, but that team sortof fell off, some people quit the
flight and it ended up being justher in Noonan, and neither one of
them were very particularly good at Morsecode or didn't have experience with Morse code

(18:48):
like some of the other team membersdid. And so they had two way
radio communication, but they never actuallyestablished it, and they're trying to call
out to the Atasca. They're tryingto sort of basically, it's like leaving
the safety of one radio communication andsort of there's a little bit of a
lull there and then you get intothe safety of the other radio communication.
So it's kind of like a littleover the halfway point, and she's starting

(19:12):
to run low on fuel. There'sa lot of little things that go wrong.
There's unanticipated headwinds that cause them toend up burning a lot more fuel
than they anticipated. And they areapparently according to the last Ataska radiologs,
they are very close to the island. And when I say very close,
I mean about about two hundred milesout, maybe one hundred miles out even

(19:36):
and they're starting to panic. They'restarting to worry a little bit because they've
never been able to establish two wayradio communication, and Earhart is calling out
to the Atasca. The calls getmore and more frantic as they appear to
get closer and closer. The Ataskais trying to get a bearing on the
plane. They're picking up really goodsignal strength, which will come into play

(19:57):
in some of the theory, andthey get to a certain point in Amelia
Earhart, the last word she eversays is wait. And there's a really
famous line that she says. We'reon the line one five seven three three
seven, which is basically like aline of position that they're trying to stay
on so they can sort of hithow An Island, and they are on

(20:18):
this line, they're trying to getto Holland and they never make it.
Basically, her last word was,you know, gas is running low.
We're on the line one five seventhree three seven, And then she says
the word wait, and that's thelast word that she ever says, and
basically the Taska loses them. They'restill trying to call out frantically. After
there's this massive search for Earhart andNoonan after that, and the plane or

(20:41):
Earhart or Noonan have never been heardfrom since. And at that point,
theories, literally almost the next day, theories abound about what might have happened
to them. Everything as simple asthem crashing and sinking and just falling short
of how An island, running outof gas and you know, going into
the ocean all the way to youknow, all the theories that we cover

(21:02):
on the show, which of coursewe can we can definitely get into.
Yeah, it's almost poetic, isn'tit, Where she's like wait, dot
dot dot and we're literally all stillwaiting. Absolutely, absolutely, that's exactly
how it out is. It's there'sa lot of irony in it. There's
a lot of tragedy in it.Of obviously, you know, it's a
really sad thing because they were soclose. And what's really ironic about it

(21:26):
is when they left initially for theflight, they were actually supposed to go
east to west, so Holland wasactually going to be their first stop if
the flight, you know, whenthe flight originally, when the flight originated,
that's the original plan. And whenthey left from Hawaii the first time
they actually Amelia Earhart actually crashed theplane. She did something called ground looping,

(21:48):
which is the best way I candescribe groundloop is if you and I
credit a gentleman by the name ofGary Lapouk who actually showed me this.
But if you go into a grocerystore and you take a cart and you
just push the cart down an aisle. The cart will sort of spin at
a certain point and sort of turninward to the right or to the left,
depending on the cart. And whathappened basically is the plane did that

(22:10):
and it basically caved in on itselfon the wings and it ground looped and
destroyed the plane so badly that theyhad to actually rebuild the plane. And
because of that, they left severalmonths later and actually had to reverse the
route. So Holland was actually goingto be toward the end of the flight.
And who knows what would have happenedif they would have been able to
successfully take off the first time andgo hit Holland first and sort of get

(22:33):
it out of the way before theycould do sort of a lot of the
easier quote unquote easier routes and theeasier flights are easier stops, I should
say, so a lot of reallycrazy, interesting sad irony in this whole
story. Really, So before weget into the theories, I've got a
couple of questions. What was AmeliaEarhart's situation, Like, was she married,

(22:55):
did she have any kids? Canyou speak to that. Yeah,
well it depends on who you talkto about kids. That gets really into
the woo woo as we say it, like it gets really crazy. But
yes, she was married. Sheactually ended up marrying a gentleman by the
name of George Putnam, who wasa big time publisher at the time.
George Putnam has a really interesting connectionto Charles Lindbergh, who we've mentioned tonight,

(23:18):
because George Putnam five years prior tomeeting Amelia Earhart, roughly he published
Lindbergh's autobiography, so he had experiencewith sort of marketing pilots at the time,
and that's he you know, alot of credit goes to George Putnam
for sort of creating you know,like if Earhart was a social media star,
he would have been her manager,if that makes sense. You know,

(23:40):
he would have created, you know, sort of this really extravagant profile
for her and all that good stuff. I got lou Pearlman, guy who
created boy band. Yeah exactly.Yeah, he sort of guided her,
and he, to his credit,I mean, he, you know,
from a professional standpoint, was infatuatedwith her. Thought he would she would
be a star, and he wasabsolutely right. About that, but he

(24:02):
also fell in love with her.He asked her to marry him multiple times.
She told him no multiple times.So he was very persistent, and
he loved Amelia very much. Ifirmly believe that with all my heart.
I think he did. Uh.You know, you could see them sort
of, there's pictures of them,you know, before she left for the
flight, you know, before basicallythe last time he'd ever see her,

(24:23):
and you know, you could seethe love in their eyes. It wasn't
just you know, hey, getout there and make this happen. It
was it was a different scenario.And they had, you know, they
had just bought a house, andthey actually had a couple of houses,
and they were gonna this flight wasgoing to set the rest of their lives
up. You know, Amelia wasgoing to sort of return from this flight
and you know, who knows shewhat she was going to be able to

(24:45):
do with her lecturing career which hadjust started about a year and a half
prior to her disappearance, and herrelationship with Purdue and all that good stuff.
So George Putnam and her, youknow, were married. He searched
for her after he was very muchin love with her, and he very
much was. You know, he'ssaid multiple times on record that she was
the love of his life. Hefinished her autobiography and he put it out

(25:10):
afterwards, and it's actually in herwords most of it. You know,
he sort of ghost wrote some ofit, but it was most of her
words. And you know, hecontinued to he did remarry and everything,
but he'd continue to always state onrecord that he Amelia was the love of
his life, and you know,he really wanted to find out what happened
to her. And you know,it was just a really sad again,
just adding to the tragedy of herdisappearance. And what about Noonan? What

(25:33):
was his background? Did he havea wife and family? He did.
Nowonon was actually so he didn't haveany kids, but Nowonon was actually recently
remarried when he accepted the assignment toboard the World flight as its navigator.
And he if you were going togo across the world on a flight like
that, Fred Noonan would have beenthe guy you'd want to have on board

(25:55):
the flight with you. He wassort of the pioneer forestial navigation. He
had basically created a lot of theroutes or mapped a lot of the routes
that the PanAm clippers used at thetime. He was a real dominant force
in navigation just in general, andhe had just newly remarried. He had
to think it. He'd only beenremarried for a couple of weeks when they

(26:18):
disappeared, you know, when theytook off on the world flight. I
should say so his wife b Noonan, who sort of went into hiding after
they disappeared. She was never reallyshe never really got over losing Fred,
and they never had any kids.They had just been they had just been
freshly married, so they didn't geta chance to start that family or for
him to really have a secondary careerafter his navigation career kind of came to

(26:40):
a close. And I think Noonanwas sort of looked at that flight is
sort of setting up the rest ofhis life too, And unfortunately neither one
of them got a chance to seethat second life. Can you imagine the
type of career in lives that theywould have had had they come back successfully
and not disappeared, like they wouldhave been set up forever and they could
have lectured anywhere they wanted. Theycould have done some kind of speaker circuit,

(27:04):
whatever kind of speaker circuit they haveback then, you know what I
mean, everybody would have wanted tohave heard them speak about what their trip
was like. It's just so sadthat neither one of them got to come
back. And I mean, ifthey wanted to have kids, if they
wanted to have families, they nevergot to have that chance. It's just
it feels almost like a Shakespearean tragedyaround centered around a female character. Though,

(27:30):
yeah, absolutely, you hit thenail right on the head with that.
It's you know, they were bothvery much looking forward to their careers
post World flight. Amelia herself wasreally sort of breaking new ground. She
had just started this sort of thisguest she had, like a guest professor
consultant sort of role that she hadjust started at Purdue University. Purdue is

(27:55):
still has one of the largest collectionsof Amelia Earhart memorabilia in the world,
and it's it's become sort of thisresearch facility now for for Amelia Earharts archives
and for researchers that are studying thecase and trying to work on a particular
theory or whatever the case is.And she had just started with that career.
She had just started with them abouta year and a half prior,
so I can only imagine what shewould have been able to do with Purdue.

(28:18):
She was, you know, shewas a pioneer in STEM before STEM
was an acronym, you know,So she was She was in these classrooms
talking directly to these women. AndI think it was a role that Amelia,
probably her most cherished role of allwas she got to sort of get
in on the ground floor and tryto inspire women to not just get like

(28:40):
a general degree, but go intoengineering, going too aviation, go into
you know, mathematics, go intoall these different uh you know, roles,
and do something with your life.Get up there and fly. That
was a big deal. She was, you know, part of building this
lab that was going to be thislab that had all these engines in it
and things of that nature. Womencould sort of learn how engines worked and

(29:03):
could sort of tinker with all thesethings like a living breathing lab. And
she was getting ready to put thatout and do that. And so Amelia's
legacy would Purdue and and her lecturecircuit would have been monumental, I think
after and I think that's probably whereshe would have spent most of her time
if she had if she had comeback, well, I can imagine that
she would have been really well versedin mathematics, engineering, everything technical because

(29:26):
in order to pilot a plane.And I think one thing you said that
I found really interesting and I wantedto ask you more about, was you
said that she walked away from elevencrashes? Is that typical? Is that?
Like, why do you think thatis? Is it because of the
hardware the planes? Yeah, allthe above, I mean it was it
was just a really you know,if I could put any word on it,

(29:48):
it was just it was an experimentaltime. You know, people were
you know, not flight hadn't reallybeen around for a whole whole lot of
time, and women in flight hadn'thad been around for even less, so
you know, it was very experimental. With some of the aircraft. They
were basically these aircraft that were beingyou know, put together and held together

(30:08):
by you know, just rudimentary equipment, and it was a very scary thing.
And that's why these women were sortof sort of hailed as being as
brave as they were and all that, because they were doing things that were
just sort of unreal at the time, and everybody crashed. Everybody had crashes.
Everybody walked away from you know,certain crashes, and a lot of

(30:30):
crashes killed women and killed men ofcourse, killed just pilots in general.
And so that's why earlier in theconversation I mentioned that she was thirty nine
when she disappeared. That's that's areally high that's a really old age for
flight at that time. Right now, it's it's nothing, you think nothing
of it because you have pilots thatare you know, the technologies there,
and it's you know, thank god, crashing in airline accidents are much fewer

(30:52):
and far between than they were then. But you know, it was just
very experimental at the time. It'svery risky and she you know, she
had her fair share of crashes andand bad starts and you know, takeoffs
it didn't work out right, andshe walked away from all that, and
it's pretty remarkable that she hadn't diedearlier with some of the risks that she
took. You know, she waskind of a risky pilot, but that

(31:15):
was that's I think that's part ofthe iconography of Erhart as a person.
I find it really interesting that shewent from social worker to like this aviation
hero. What was her childhood like? In her upbringing, like, yeah,
she was born in a little towncalled Actress in Kansas, that's actually
about ninety minutes from where I'm sittingright now. And she was a tomboy

(31:36):
for all intents and purpose. Soshe was a tomboy. She loved exploring
the caves and the bluffs, um, you know, in actresson She spent
a lot of time there when shewas little, and she as she grew
up, she sort of embraced thata lot more. She was never really
sort of a quote unquote girly girlat the time. And this is keep
in mind, this is the earlyyou know, she's born in eighteen ninety
eight, and I always get thatwrong, but she was born in a

(32:00):
time that just women just weren't youknow, they just weren't expected to be
any anything else but housewives and mothers. And she looked at that and it
was just like, no, it'snot what I want to do. I
want to I want to walk adifferent route. And so her childhood was
sort of made up of that.Luckily, she had women in her life

(32:21):
that she could look up to.That were sort of a shining example.
Her mother was the first woman toclimb Pike's Peak and she did it in
you know, in boots and adress, and you know this she had
these women to look up to.Her grandmother instilled in her that she could
do whatever she wanted. Her fatherdid the same, you know, even

(32:42):
though her father was an alcoholic andthey had a lot of issues with him
sort of being fall down drunk alot and just sort of not being there
for her and her sister Muriel,there were some really wonderful times when her
father really inspired her to, hey, you don't have to you know,
you can do what you want todo. This is really important. So
she went against the grain from anearly age, and luckily she had support

(33:07):
growing up. And you know,she moved around a lot and went to
multiple schools and sort of lived agypsy life with her mom and her sister,
and she had a lot of experienceearly in her life. She was
a nurse in World War One andshe would take care of a lot of
the soldiers that came home and shesaw sort of the fallout of war and

(33:30):
what that could do to men andwhat that could do to people just the
human race in general. And shereally detested war. She really detested you
know, fighting. She was veryshe was very much a feminist. She
was very much you know, inthat zone of hey, you know,
we don't she was sort of antiwar and anti guns and all that stuff.
But I mean she, you know, at the same time, when

(33:51):
she was a little kid, sheher father bought her a little rifle and
she would shoot like rats and stufflike that, and she would, you
know, she would go around likeshe was just a rough and tumble to
tomboy. So I think that foundationand in that support from everybody around her,
luckily for her, I think,inspired her dreams and made her,
you know, want to say,yeah, I actually can do this,
and I actually have to support Andyou know, even though her mom and

(34:14):
her sort of had falling out laterdown the line and kind of would come
back together, she kind of alwayshad that had that you know, that
faith and that inspiration and that loveto sort of support her, which was
I think is a beautiful thing too, especially at that time. I love
that she comes from this long lineof women who seem to subvert traditional gender
norms or societal expectations, like whowho would have thought that there would be

(34:37):
you know, women going and beinglike, I'm going to be the first
person to climb Pike's Peak in myboots and dress. I love it.
Yeah, yeah, amy Otis Earhart, she was. She was a badass.
I mean she it's easier, easier, I guess I should say for
for somebody at that time who hada direct role model to look up to
like that. And if your ownmom is doing you know, these remarkable

(34:59):
thing things, I mean, youknow, it just it just kind of
it all backs your sort of yourdesire to sort of get out there and
do something different. And she,ironically enough, she you know, when
she saw her first airplane, shewasn't that impressed. You know, it
wasn't it was cool, but itwasn't a huge deal. But when she
went up and she felt flight forthe first time, it was one of
those things. It was like alight switch that went off. And Amelia

(35:22):
Earhart was one of those people thatyou know, if if she could do
something, or if she was goingto do something, she would do it
all the way and she wouldn't halfask anything, and she would go she
was until it was over. Shewas all in all the time. And
she immersed herself in that. Alot of people say she had this really

(35:44):
unique ability to walk a fine line. She could cuss like, as my
dad used to say, cuss likea marine corps d I. She could
hang with the men and she couldhang with the women. She could turn
it on. It was almost likea I sort of relate her, And
this is kind of a little weirdsometime, but I sort of relate her
to like Marilyn Monroe in a way, totally different person, obviously totally different

(36:04):
you know, background and everything,but Marilyn Monroe could just turn it on.
It wasn't you know. It waslike she could become Marilyn Monroe,
you know, the the icon,just almost instantly, and in her heart
sort of knew how to do thattoo. She could. She had this
really shy smile, and she knewhow to sort of work news reporters and
you know, newspaper people at thetime, and she gave these lectures and

(36:24):
she came across as this really sortof doting, sweet woman. She was
great with kids, but she wasa you know, she never left that
sort of tomboy, you know,foundation, and she could sort of turn
that on too, and she couldget in there and get her hands dirty,
and you know, she she shewas sort of everything, and you
know, she was everything all atonce. It's so interesting you brought up

(36:45):
Marilyn Monroe because when you were talkingabout earlier like how she's the most iconic
woman in aviation, and I wasthinking to myself, like, who are
the most iconic women of the twentiethcentury that come to my mind? And
literally Marilyn Monroe and Amelia were thetwo women that came to my mind.
Yeah, absolutely, I would agreeone hundred percent. Marilyn Monroe, Amelia

(37:06):
Earhart. Those names are you know, there's there's really there's famous women and
then there's icons. And it's certainlynot taking anything away from what other women
have done in history, but Imean, Amelia Earhart is sort of this
she's sort of like this untouchable icon, but she's sort of, uh,
you know, shrouded in mystery andshe's sort of become this um really uh

(37:30):
you know, compromising, argumentative figure. Almost historically she's this person that you
know, her career and her legacy, there's a gray area between her career
and her legacy and the disappearance it'sit's really overlapping. It's not it's not
black and white. And that's oneof the things that we've we've sort of
stood for for as long as wehave with Chasing Your Heart and you know,

(37:52):
to a certain degree with Vanished Aswe really wanted to stress the legacy.
The legacy is absolutely the dominant,you know, predominant part of her
life because she you know, sheflew for years and she lived thirty nine
years and a lot of people sortof are so fascinated with the last few
minutes of her life and then whatbecame of her after that, and it's

(38:15):
one of those scenarios where people,you know, she's become a really controversial
figure and that's you know, that'sreally not surprising, but we talk about
it a lot on the show.Yeah, I think everybody who's listening,
like, there's not going to beone person who doesn't know who Amelia Earhart
is and the contribution that she's madenot only to aviation but also putting women

(38:37):
into the forefront of a male dominatedindustry in the nineteen twenties, like that
was just so unheard of. Yeah, yeah, think about what's going on
right now, think about the reallythe fight for equality that's still happening right
now, and it's it's sad thatit is. We had one of the
things we talked about, you know, within the document and on the certainly

(39:00):
on the podcast and Chasing Erhart andand to a degree again with Vanished is
there are all these women out therein the world right now that are doing
these remarkable things and there's still there'sstill this struggle in this fight for equality.
We've talked to multiple women who arelike tops in their field, and
they talk about, you know,there's there's a really great story. We

(39:22):
talked to a woman. Her nameis doctor Anita sing Guta. She is
a she's a rock star and aviationand stem and she we featured her on
the show or you know, inthe project in the documentary, and she
is you know, she was tellingus one day when we were talking to
her, she's like, you know, um, I we were out there

(39:43):
in the desert testing this um,testing this balloon for the Curiosity Rover.
Uh and we took this picture,the snapshot of this team and it's like
me and like twenty dudes, there'slike no women in science. You know.
It's it's it's very it's very interesting, and so we often talk about,
uh, you know what Amelia wouldthink now, you know, would

(40:04):
she be satisfied? Likely not?But which how would she feel about sort
of the state of women in STEMand women in aviation and aerospace, and
uh, you know, it's it'spretty remarkable that we're still struggling right now
as we speak to get sort oflike you know, equal representation and equal
equal recognition. You know, It'sit's been remarkable. Yeah, it's like

(40:25):
we've made some strides, but itfeels like we haven't made enough, especially
considering how much time has passed.I think she would genuinely be shocked at
where we are today based on whichdirection things probably felt as though they were
heading, because she was spearheading that, right, she was out in front
of it, and she was gettingwomen into the forefront of you know,

(40:47):
industries in which it was only men, you know what I mean. And
I'm it's just like like we talkedabout Mary Curry earlier. There's just like
women weren't in science and in physics, specifically in chemistry. They are today,
but even now it's a much smallerpercentage than it is of men.
Yeah. Absolutely, And Earhart wasthe loudest and most powerful voice in the

(41:08):
room. And I think that's Ithink she was smart enough to recognize that.
And so when they did things likethe nineteen twenty nine air Derby where
they had all these female, reallyfamous female aviators, better pilots than Earhart,
by her own admission, as Isaid, Florence Klington Smith, Ruth
Elder, Ruth Nichols. I mean, there's there's a ton of them out
there. And unfortunately, when yousay women in aviation, everybody says Amelia

(41:31):
Earhart, and that's you know,that's that's great, but that's also kind
of sad too, because a lotof women did remarkable things back in that
in that time, especially in aviation, and they're they're just now starting to
get some recognition, you know,fifty sixty eighty years later, even and
um, you know, it's oneof those situations where Earhart, I think,

(41:52):
recognize that, Hey, we've gota little bit of power here,
and you know, what should Ido. Should I just sort of fall
by the wayside claim it from myself, or should I use that power to
prop up everyone around me? Andthat's what she did, and she was
one of the first women to everdo that in their respective fields. And
that's part of why she's such anicon now, is because you know,

(42:14):
here's a woman that didn't take inan age now that a lot of people
just take the fame for themselves.This is a woman that did not do
that. She used it to furtheraviation in general. She founded the ninety
nine, which is still an operationtoday. She was elected their first president.
You know, there's a lot ofthings that she did that we're still
feeling the effects of right now,which is I think that's why she's such

(42:37):
a big deal and why people needto sort of look at her as much
more than a pilot who just disappeared. And that's it. A lot more
to it than that, absolutely.So do you want to talk a little
bit about the theories because I'm dyingto hear these. Yeah, So there's
there's a lot. There's a lotwe could Honestly, this could be an
all day conversation, so I'll tryto keep it as short and sweet as

(42:58):
I can. So there's I'll keepit to the five theories that we discussed
on the show. The first oneis the most common one. It's called
crash and sink or ditch and sink. Depending on who you talk to.
It's just a term. Um.It's the official explanation for what happened to
Earhart a noon, and it's backedby the United States government to this day.
It has on its side the officialstory according to them. It's it's

(43:21):
according to U, to them andto the people that were there that day,
including a gentleman by the name ofChief Leo bell Arts who was actually
the other person on the side ofthe on the line on the Atasca,
who was actually the one trying toget ahold of her and speaking to her
and hearing her voice. If you'regoing to go with that, uh,
you know, it's got the closestthing to an eye witness that this case
we'll ever have. It also appearsthat Earhart was saying, just before they

(43:46):
disappeared, um, you know,hey, they were She was basically telling
them where they were. She wassaying, we're flying at a thousand feet
above the ocean surface. That's notvery high. A thousand feet is not
that high. And we don't knowwhy she did that. We don't know
if maybe she did that because shewas trying to put the plane down on
the water. There was reportedly alot of cloud cover or some cloud cover,

(44:09):
depending on who you talk to.And it's possible that Howland Island would
have been unseeable for them, likethey couldn't they couldn't see it, and
so they had to fly low enoughto where they can maybe drop below the
clouds and see it. The wholeidea is, you know, it was
a desperate situation, a lot ofthings went wrong, and this theory sort

(44:29):
of puts the electra in the bestcondition, you know, if it actually
hits the water and it sinks,like a lot of a lot of the
people working that particular theory believe itdid. It happens to sit eighteen thousand
feet roughly below the surface of thewater on the ocean floor. A lot
of people that work that believe thatthe plane, if it was found today,

(44:50):
would be roughly, you know,in pretty good shape, relatively good
shape, depending on how she wouldhave put it down. And so the
idea is that she was flying toHowland, she fell short, and she's
somewhere in an area that's roughly thesize of Texas for a thirty nine and
a half foot airplane. So letthat sink in for a minute. Texas,
Texas is huge. It's like itsown country. Yeah, exactly.

(45:13):
So imagine trying to be modern dayresearchers that are trying to find you know,
roughly a forty foot airplane. It'sa little less than that fifty five
foot wingspan on it, so it'snot very big, but it's you know,
if it was found tomorrow, itwould supposedly it would be in pretty
pretty good condition. Think of theTitanic. When they found it, they
were able to bring up certain documentsand things from it, Like it's stuff

(45:35):
in the deep water is preserved prettywell, is it because of the lack
of oxygen. Yeah, and theidea that just there's not a whole lot
of moving parts, you know,and there's a lot of pressure there just
keeps it there. The airplane wasmade of aluminum, which was you know,
was pretty good when it came toresisting water, and it would it
would just basically sit there under avery high pressurized in a very high pressurized

(45:57):
environment, and it would you know, it could be perfectly preserved or pretty
closely preserved to what it originally was. And so you know, that's that's
essentially the foundation, right, that'sthe base. So that's what we're starting
with. And that's what a lotof people believe. There's a lot of
scientific research to back that theory.And we have the Atasca collogus, which
you can you know, you cangoogle these. This is Jen puts it

(46:21):
beautifully in the show. If thisis a murder case, the Atasca logs
are the last text messages, allright, So it's like the the final
piece of conversation or exchange between airHeart and anybody on the face of the
earth. And that's where she says, wait, right right, that's where
she says, all those lines,we're on the line one five seven three
three seven, you know, wemust be on you, but cannot see

(46:44):
you. Gas is running low,unable to reach you by radio. A
lot of really like you know,well known lines in the air Heart case
or in that little couple of sentencesin that Ataska call logue. So that's
the foundation. That's what we're dealingwith. That's what the US government says
happened even to this day. There'salternate theories to that, and we can

(47:05):
get into that. Do you wantme to do this one by one for
you? So that way so kindyeah, break them down from me one
by one Okay. So it's thehardest thing is to break these down into
like a couple of paragraphs. Sothe second theory or another theory that's been
really popularized in the last thirty yearsespecially, it's what's it's what we lovingly

(47:28):
refer to you on the show isthe Castaway hypothesis. This puts her.
It's important to note sort of thedirection, right, so you're looking at
if you're looking at Howland Island,that's sort of zero. That's sort of
like ground zero. That's where shewas supposed to be. So now everything
we're going to talk about now isgoing to put her in different directions and
in different spots, some farther awaythan others. Howland or Nicko Ruro is

(47:52):
the name of the island. It'sit's the central focus point of Castaway and
it's about four hundred miles roughly fromHowland Island. The idea there is that
she had you know, she failedto reach Holland on that morning of July
second, and they happen to go. They happen to happen upon Gardner Island.
At the time, it was calledGardner Now it's called Nicomrouro Island,

(48:13):
and they were able to put theirplane down on a coral eightholl there and
essentially what happens next is they sendradio distress calls for approximately five days,
and they live out the rest oftheir days on the island, and they
eventually succumbed to the elements or lackof proper water. There's a dozen different
things that can kill you on thoseislands in the middle of the in the

(48:34):
middle of the ocean. And wedon't know what happened to Noonton. There's
there's a lot of rumor in innywindow that Room and Noonon might have had
a head injury on the way downor upon landing, especially if they had
to put it down really rough,and that he might not have recovered from
that that head injury, and thatit's possible that Amelia Earhart could have been
on her own on that island fordays, weeks, months, even who

(48:55):
knows. And there's a group bythe name of TIGER. The acronym is
TIGER. It stands for the InternationalGroup for Historic Aircraft Recovery. And they've
been covered, covering and reporting onyou know, Castaway for many many years.
They've been sort of dominating that themedia waves and they've they've put a
lot of effort, a lot ofwork into it, and they put a

(49:16):
lot of circumstantial evidence together to supportthe theory. You know, there's a
whole idea that there's there's a bunchof stuff they found on the island,
including this this patch panel that theybelieve came from air hearts plane. There's
you know, the soul of ashoe, There's like remnants of a of
a campsite. But you know whata lot of people don't realize is that
that island was inhabited, you know, by a lot of people that you

(49:39):
know, it was a coconut plantationat one time. There was a wreckage
from a boat from years earlier thatthat was there on that island. It's
it's an island that for that areaof the world, has a lot of
traffic. And you know, theircircumstantial evidence has been able to convince.
You know, some people theres area lot more skeptical and feel that sort
of all the coverage and all thenumerous they've done, I think thirteen or

(50:00):
fourteen expeditions to that island over theyears, they should have come up with
something concrete, and they feel likethey can rule that out based on how
thoroughly it's been sort of investigated.That's really been like the dominant predominant theory
over the last several decades. Sothat's that's castaway. It's a bit like
the Oak Island money pit, likeyou go there, if you find some

(50:21):
stuff, you'll keep waiting for it, but there's nothing actually concrete to back
it up. I get why it'scompelling though, because there's something very romantic
isn't the word, but you knowwhat I mean, almost cinematic about crash
landing on an island and trying tosurvive and like Swiss family, Robinson or
something. Yeah, absolutely, onehundred percent agree with you there. There

(50:44):
is there's a lot of interesting information. I think if you if you ever
talk to Jennifer, she'll have verystrong opinions on that theory. And I
think, you know, we dideight roughly eight hours of the show dedicated
to that theory, two parts,like four and a half hours long each
or something like that, back wayback when, so we really dug in
deep with that theory. I thinkwe had eleven or twelve expert witnesses testify

(51:06):
in that show and kind of toall these different you know, parts of
the theory, including you know,the radio distress calls. There were some
bones that were found there supposedly along time ago, that they believe might
have been air hearts, and there'sbeen you know, controversial data reported on
both sides of those you know ofthe coin there, but that's that's cast
away and in a very tight nutshell, as tight as I can get it.

(51:30):
The third one is sort of likea So the third one is the
biggest one of all of them becauseit's got the whitest it cast the whitest
net, if that makes sense.So and it plays sort of like a
Hollywood movie, and it actually wasonce upon a time, way back when
it starts in nineteen sixty six.I believe there's a CBS correspondent. His

(51:51):
name is Fred Gerner, and he'sout of San Francisco. He publishes a
book claiming that Erhard and Noonan werecaptured and actually executed when the Electra crashed
on the island of Saipan, whichis it's part of the Northern Mariana Islands
and Saipans Now Saipan's twenty seven hundredmiles away. So remember what we talked

(52:12):
about earlier, all these all theselocations are going to put her in vast
different, you know, different positionsin relation to Hallett Island. So that
particular theory is that there's over twohundred people in and around the Marshall Islands
and Saipan that can place either Earhart, Noonan or the Electra, or a

(52:34):
combination of the three in that placeat that time. So think about if
you're thinking about this as a modernday jury trial, or you're thinking about
this as a murder case, andyou have two hundred witnesses to a eyewitnesses
to a murder, you know,are you just going to throw that out
or are you're gonna you know,you're gonna aggressively investigate that. And that's
what fred Gerner did. He tooka trip over to the Marshall Islands and

(52:57):
Saipan and interviewed dozens and dozens ofpeople from all over the spectrum. And
it goes all the way from localSaipanese and Marshall Island inhabitants all the way
up to admirals in the US militarylike Admiral Chester Nimits, who you know,
he has an entire fleet is shipsnamed after him. Right now,
So to sort of take that youname as you will, but there's stories

(53:19):
all over those islands of Earhart andNowton and interacting with people on those islands,
everything from the capture to Nowton beingtreated by medical personnel there by local
medical personnel there as a result ofthe crash, you know, their containment
and in some cases gross imprisonment andtheir eventual death, you know, depending

(53:39):
on what you believe. So somepeople believe that Earhart died alone in a
jail cell there, died of dysentery. Other people believe that Earhart and Nowton
were executed and they're actually buried inshallow graves somewhere in the Marsh Islands,
somewhere on that island. And nottoo long ago, in two thousand and
seven, there was a really famousphoto that hit as part of a History

(54:01):
Channel documentary. It's famously known asthe jalue At doc photo. And it's
yeah, yeah, you've seen it. If you google Earhart, it's going
to come up just as a regularGoogle shirt. It's the search at some
point, and you know, itwas a really compelling photo was found by
Les Kinney and the National Archives andhe stands by it to this day,
and it was a photo that youknow, appears to show more dominantly Noonan

(54:24):
than Earhart. Earhart's sort of backsturned to the photo and she's kind of
looking to the right, So youreally can't make out a whole lot of
detail, but you can make outNoonan's widow's peak. You can sort of
make out, you know, alittle bit more of his his body language
and everything in the photo. Anduh, you know, it's one of
the most fiercely argued and debated theoriesof all of them, because there's just

(54:46):
so much attached to it. There'sso much there's such a wide net that
it casts, and there's so manydifferent paths that Japanese capture can sort of
walk down, depending on what exactlyyou believe on it. So that that's
Japanese capture and a very and againin a very tight nutshell. So,
um, yeah, that's that's that. Uh, there's that's what three.

(55:09):
So there's two more that we coveredon the show. Um. The second
to last one that we covered onthe show is actually has actually become one
of the most compelling ones, andit's called the BUCA theory. If you
google Amelia Earhart and Buka. You'lllikely see the Fox News article and a
bunch of other stuff at this kindof set fire not too long ago,
a few it's been a few yearsnow, but it's it's sort of I

(55:30):
think it's getting ready to sort ofcome back up again. But the whole
idea was that it's been worked bya gentleman by the name of Bill Snaveley
and his team Project Blue Angel,and they believe it's very simple. They
believe that there's uh that they simplyturned around, that there's They really tie
in a lot to the flight radius. Um it starts. Buka's interesting because

(55:51):
it starts with an airplane, andit's sort of he's sort of walking that
airplane back to where he can havea theory to sort of fit how that
airplane got there. There is aa plane that's in about one hundred and
fifty feet of water right now.It's in one of the most terrible underwater
environments you can imagine. It's engulfedin coral. It's been there for eighty

(56:12):
five years, if he's right.And the whole idea is that Earhard and
noon and were about halfway and theyrealized that they couldn't make it that they
were eating up too much gas,and it sort of goes back to what
I was talking to you about earlier, when it comes to a lot of
little things that they didn't anticipate.But this version of the story actually has
a happy year ending. She doesn'tjust crash in the ocean. She turns

(56:34):
around and it at least attempts togo back and land on the closest available
runway, which would have been Bukaat the time, which was like this
little island in Papua New Guinea,this little area. It was in an
area that was never searched by anybodybecause they didn't they assume that she would
never Why would she be way overthere. It's it's you know, it's
nowhere close to where she was at. And basically she encounters a storm,

(56:58):
and she does talk a little bitof out like cloud cover and some stuff
like that. But she encounters astorm and the plane gets struck by lightning,
which is actually very common at thetime. That happened a lot in
some of these crashes. And theleft wing gets struck by lightning, it
comes down, it falls out ofthe sky, and there's a lone witness
on this beach who's a little boyat the time, and he sees this

(57:19):
plane. He freaks out and hethinks it's like the Second Coming. He
doesn't he's never seen anything like thatin his life, and he runs off
to tell the villagers and nobody believeshim. And apparently Earhart and Nowton they
die on impact, or they diewhen they know shortly after landing or shortly
after crashing, I should say,and did this water they drown. I
don't know how they would have died, but they perish. And you fast

(57:43):
forward all the way back to theearly or mid nineties, I think it
was, and there's this local diverwho's basically free diving for sea cucumbers or
something of that nature, and hefinds this plane. He comes across this
plane that's that's exactly in the samespot that this little boy said it was.
And at the time a little boywas like in his you know,

(58:04):
well into his eighties or nineties orsomething. And they basically verified that,
Hey, what you were saying allthose years ago did happen. And Bill
Snaveley is this guy who has beenbasically working on this theory for a very
long time now, and they've foundthis plane that happens to have multiple characteristics.
From what they can tell, thatseemed to match, you know,
air hearts plane, and I saythat with a very you know air quotes.

(58:28):
You know, they seemed to matchthat. It's hard to tell because
it's rapp and coral and they've beeninvestigating this plane and they've they've gone out
to Bucca a couple of times witha very skeletal crew, and they're trying
to get funding right now to goback out there with a legitimate crew,
with a legitimate amount of equipment togo out there and try to determine if
this is her plane or not.And it's a pretty remarkable story. If

(58:50):
he's right, that's you know,that's pretty insane. And it's possible that
he could be the one that wassort of looking in the right place all
along when everybody was sort of lookingin a different direction. He was looking
here, and he might have stumbledacross the Holy Grail. So we'll see
what happens with that. Hopefully hewill have an ending, and regardless if
it's their Heart's plane or not,he'll be able to tell the story of
whoever was flying that plane. Andthat's theory number four. Wow, that's

(59:13):
a really interesting one. I've neverheard that theory before. Yeah, it's
you know, it's it's it's thenewest theory. And by the air Heart
investigation, that's that's a stretch becausea lot of these theories, as as
I've mentioned, they've started thirty,forty, fifty, sixty years ago.
In some cases, crash and sinkstarted the day after she disappeared. Basically
they've assumed that she crashed in theocean. So yeah, these are you

(59:36):
know, this has only been goingon with BUCA for about you know,
fifteen eighteen years maybe, which seemslike a long time. But by the
yeah, by the standards of theair Heart investigation, it's it's the newest
one. So that's that's theory four. The fifth and final theory that we
covered on the show is probably thecraziest, and it's a it's an extension

(59:59):
of jaff and he's captured. It'sone of those extensions I talked about.
And if you look at this likelike I choose your own adventure story.
I mean, everybody's remember of thosewhen you were little. This one is
the idea that Amelia Earhart actually wasin Japanese custody for a time for four
or five years, depending again onwhere you go and who you believe and

(01:00:21):
who you talked to. And theidea was that Earhart was repatriated back into
the United States years later, andshe actually survived, and she actually came
home. And when she was repatriated, there was no witness Protection program.
There was nothing like that at thetime, but she would have been one
of the early inhabitants of that programbefore it even had a name. Essentially,

(01:00:44):
the whole idea was that she hadthe connections, she had the ability,
and she had really the I guessthe power for lack of a better
term, to be able to makethis happen. And the idea is that
she assumed the identity of another person, a person that she knew that she
actually had at least a very limitedprofessional connection to the name of the woman

(01:01:07):
is Irene Bollum. And if yougoogle search Amelia Earhart and Irene Bollem,
you'll come up with you'll see awealth of This is a crazy, fun
rabbit hole to go down. Andthe whole idea was that Earhart and Bollem
were one and the same. Thatshe never flew again, she was repatriated
and she lived out the rest ofher days on the East coast and she
never flew again. And it wasa really crazy, fun, interesting story.

(01:01:31):
And it seems really out there untilyou start looking into some of the
evidence that's been presented to support thattheory, and all of a sudden,
theory number five creeps in and youstart looking at that thinking maybe there's something
to that. And so it's basicallyjust a variation or an alternate ending for
Japanese capture, if that makes sense. And those are the five. Those

(01:01:52):
are the five theories that we coveredon the show. And honestly there's probably
like two or three dozen, butthat's those five main theories. We tried
to encompass some of the greatest hits, you know, some of the main
theories, and some of some fresher, newer ones or some theories that people
don't really talk about too often,and we put those all on trial with
all these different witnesses and we andall this different expert testimony and all this

(01:02:14):
different evidence, and that's what madeup season one of the show. So
I'm really interested for you to rankthem one to five, what you think
is the most likely. Oh,I get this question all the time.
It's it never becomes easier to answer. Um. So, you know,
a lot of this is going tohave to do with what Jin's influence on

(01:02:36):
the show, because she really,she really did come aboard the show and
just sort of you know, sheputs a lot of it into perspective.
Crash and sync. You know,that's that's what the US government states happened
to her. We had we wereable to through technology and through some of
this through a very generous donation fromElgin Long, who has recently passed away,

(01:02:58):
and Dave Bellart's who is leobell Art'sson, we were able to actually
bring way back when Elgin Long interviewedLeobell Arts and like the early seventies,
and we're actually able to bring thatarchived audio into the show and actually have
him return as a witness, whichwas pretty cool, pretty fun. And
he you know, when you hearhis testimony, if you're sitting in a
jury box, it's really compelling.If she didn't crash and didn't fall short

(01:03:22):
of Holland and crash in the ocean, he didn't know about it, like
he knew like he knew like heknew that Earhart he heard her voice.
He was the one talking to her, at least halfway communicating with her.
The way he recalls her final momentsis bone chilling. It's really like,
wow, this is a woman thatimagine everything we talked about. And then

(01:03:43):
go and listen to his testimony,especially like the last ten minutes of it,
it's pretty remarkable. So you havethat the closest thing to an eyewitness,
and then you have the Ataska logs. That's really hard to beat.
If you're looking at this purely onthe sustainability of the evidence and the concreteness
of the evidence, that's really toughto beat. So I would say until

(01:04:04):
somebody brings forth something that's earth shattering, I think you have to that has
to be the predominant, That hasto be the base. That's what everything
is measured off of and around ofm And so you look at that and
you know that is probably, Idon't want to say it the most likely,

(01:04:24):
but that's that's awfully compelling. Andthen my second one, I think
is going to be right there withwith Buca. I think you know that
plane, You've got a plane.So I talk about this in the book
and in the show it's it's justan analogy I throw out there. And
you know, if you're a detectiveand you're investigating a murder, Let's say,
and there's a crime, it's acrime scene. And let's say you're

(01:04:45):
it's a domestic violence situation gone terriblywrong, and you know, the woman
gets murdered or something, and yougo to the house. You know,
this is the crime scene. Sothe crime scene's hall on. This is
where they, you know, supposedlyfell out of the sky and didn't make
it. And if you're investigating thecrime scene and you find all this random
evidence, maybe you find a bloodstainedwall, or you find it maybe even

(01:05:05):
a murder weapon or something like that, but you don't find a body.
And then suddenly you get a callfrom a colleague and it's like, hey,
we found this body in this inthis dumpster in this alley, like
you know, a mile or twoaway. If you're investigating that case,
are you going to go look atthat body or are you just gonna say
it's too far away? And sobecause of that, it's we can rule

(01:05:26):
it out without even seeing it.That's what I feel like Bill is doing
right now. He's saying, Hey, we have a body here. I
mean, this is that's what you'relooking at. There's there are three bodies
in this there's Earhart's body, there'sNewton's body, and there's the body of
that Electra. And everybody's searching forthat electra. And Snavely has found something.
Uh, you know, he mighthave found. You know, we

(01:05:47):
don't know what it is. He'sfound he's found a plane. We don't
know if it's the plane, buthe's found something that's got enough similarity that
you know, it's sort of screamingat people to go investigate it properly.
And I feel like that's sort ofbecome over the last few years the elephant
in the room. If you don'tinvestigate that and at least get out there

(01:06:08):
and rule that out, then youcan't you can't move the case forward.
You have to rule that out.You have to eliminate that theory. If
nothing else, you have to eliminateit. So I think crash and Sink
and Buka are like one in twoand they're really tight. Sometimes I go
back and forth between the two,and then you know, I think the
other other ones that are sort ofa toss up. Japanese capture uh,

(01:06:28):
you know, Irene Bollum is justa really fun one. It's it's really
interesting, and I think it's reallyimportant. And I think a lot of
the people that have done work,people like Totswandel, that have done comprehensive
studies on this, their work shouldbe spotlighted, it should be taken seriously.
So I think, you know,you know, ask me tomorrow,
it probably be a different order.But I say, you know, crash,
crash, and sink, Buka Japanesecapture, what else is there?

(01:06:53):
Castaway is probably toward the end forme for right now, and then you
know, Irene Ballum is right there. I think, so, yeah,
you know, it's it's just differentevery day. It feels a bit like
Schrodinger's cat, like all things arealmost equally probable until somebody comes along and
figures out what it is and collapsesthe way of function into reality and one

(01:07:14):
of these theories becomes concrete. It'sstrange, like I definitely agree with you.
I think, of course, thecrash one is the most crash,
and sink is probably the most likely. But there's these little bits of the
other theories that really pull me towardsthem because it just creates this other story
that goes along with it, andit's possible until we actually find out what
happened. Absolutely, it's you hitit right on the It's Schrodinger's plane.

(01:07:38):
That's exactly what we're dealing with.It's Schrodinger's plane. We don't know which
one of these is right until werule them out. And that's what we've
always tried to do on the show. That's the position I've always tried to
take personally. Look, I don'tknow who's right. I mean, you
know, there's there's there are peopleon representing each of these theories that are
just that can run circles around meas far as their their knowledge and their

(01:08:01):
expertise, and you know the amountof time they've studied this case, and
they could all you know, theyall have very valid arguments, very valid
evidence, very important stuff to talkabout. They could all be right.
But I feel like, you know, what we've always tried to do with
Chasing Your Heart and with you know, with definitely with Vanished is we sort
of you know, we try toeliminate theories. We're not out to we're

(01:08:23):
not out to prove a theory.We're not we're out to eliminate theories,
so you would always down until there'sonly, you know, really the most
probable, plausible explanation. And it'sthe difficulty there lies in uh not being
able to eliminate anything, because it'sall compelling, it all has something to
say, it all matters, andthat's sort of the the basis of the

(01:08:45):
show. That's sort of like,that's sort of the very foundation of what
we argue on the show. Jenwill you know, my my role in
the show is to argue all ofthese theories. I will go on and
I will I will advocate for crashand SYNC, and I will advocate just
as aggressively for Japanese capture and castaway. That's my job. That's what I'm
supposed to do. I'm supposed topresent the best possible representation of these cases.

(01:09:06):
And Jen does what Jen does,which has come behind me and sort
of poke holes in it, crossexamine all these witnesses across examine all these
experts, and do it in away that, hey, if this was
real, this was probably this wouldprobably be what it sound like. You
know what it sounds like if you'rewatching this, you know, if you're
watching a court trial on court TVor something, and it's the Airheart trial.

(01:09:27):
You know, for whatever reason,this is kind of what it would
look and feel like. And thatwas really really the premise of the show,
and that's really what continues to bethe premise of the show for all
the cases that we cover. Yeah, it's been really interesting talking about this
case because some of these theories Ihad no idea about. Specifically the BUCA
theory. I think it's the firstI've ever heard of it, and now

(01:09:47):
I'm going to go down a rabbithole and read all about it. Have
fun. Yeah, it's it's oneof those things Forest from Astonishing Legends he
way back when he told me it'slike the It's like it's like the car.
It's like those people that test outcars, and I think you said
something like, oh, you know, you you get this first car and
it's like, oh, this isthe best car ever. It's got everything.

(01:10:09):
And then you go test a secondcar You're like, oh, man,
this is the best car ever.It's got everything. So like it's
like the same scenario you can lookat if you exclude all of the other
theories and you focus just on onemost of the time, with the evidence
supplied in those theories, you canbe sort of bought and sold by that
theory, and then you look atthe next one and you're like, holy
crap, this is just as compelling, or this is even more compelling.

(01:10:30):
So now I'm really confused. It'sit's the definition of a rabbit hole.
That's why we called the book rabbithole is because it's exactly what it is.
It's the the worse or the youknow, the further you dig,
the worse it gets, the morecomplex it gets. And you know,
when you look at that, youknow, when you look at that,
and then you look at the ideathat this is the most this was the

(01:10:53):
most famous woman on the planet.You add that to the case. It's
you know, it's a it's arabbit hole. It swallows whole. That's
exactly what it does. It reallyand truly does. So I want to
thank you Chris for taking the timeto talk to me, and do you
want to talk about all of yourprojects one more time? And where the
listeners can find you on social media? Yeah? Sure, so we're we're

(01:11:14):
pretty much on every Just look forat vanished pod on Twitter. I think
we're on Instagram at vanished Pod aswell, Facebook, dot Com, Forward
slash Vanished Pod. That's our groupwe have. The group is pretty active,
we have a lot of It's reallygreat because our group, we have
a lot of experts that have actuallyappeared on the show that that kind of
talk and mingle with fans of theshow and everything. That's a lot of
fun because you get a lot ofsort of like you know, direct feedback

(01:11:38):
from not only me and Gin,but for the show itself. And then
we have a book coming out.I'm really proud of it. It's it's
Porto Myku de Graw. It's it'srepresenting the last twenty years of my life
and the last two and a halfyears straight of editing, and essentially it's
it's a it's a written transcript ofseason one exactly as you heard it,
but it's changed for written written consumptionand it's had a lot of retrospectives in

(01:12:00):
it. A new information in thatbook is called rabbit Hole, The Vanishing
of Amelia Earhart and Fred Nowton,and it's going to be published by Beyond
the Free Publishing and that's going torelease on July second, which is the
eighty fifth anniversary of their disappearance.So find us Chasing Rheart dot com,
vanish show dot com. Not tobe confused with the vanished or up and
vanished. I know it's a popularword, but yeah, that's where you

(01:12:21):
can find us. I want tothank you all for listening. I would
love to hear from you all.If any of you have anything to say
about the case, any thoughts,you can reach out to me at Riddle
Me that Pod at gmail dot com, or I'm really really active on Twitter,
so please follow me. I'll followyou back a podcast riddle and I
just wanted to let you all knowif you're unaware, I don't have a

(01:12:42):
Riddle of Me that Patreon, butI have a Patreon with doctor Ashley Wellman.
So at the three dollar level youget early access ad free episodes.
At the five dollars level, there'sa Jewels in Ashley or either ash you
will tell me a story or I'lltell Ashley's story and it will be conspiracy
theories solved, solve kind of alittle bit of everything. As a ten
dollars level, there's a path wentChilli Mini, so we'll have Robin joining

(01:13:06):
us for that. So we're reallyreally excited. I will link that in
the show notes, So until nexttime, stay safe and remember accept nothing,
question everything music bob Jobbers